Texas officials have authorized emergency “surge operations” along the Mexico border to deal with a spike in illegal border crossings, a sizable portion of which are women and children fleeing violence in Central America.

According to Joe Straus, the Republican Texas House Speaker, the
state’s Border Patrol reported 160,000 individuals were caught
illegally crossing into the state through the Rio Grande Valley
through the first eight months of the fiscal year, that number
representing the entire total of individuals caught last year.

Though illegal immigration into the US has been a longstanding
issue, of particular concern in recent months has been the number
of children coming across into the US. The Office of Refugee
Resettlement, which takes responsibility for the unsupervised
children arrivals, has seen an increase from 13,625 cases in
fiscal year 2012 to 24,668 last fiscal year, as reported by USA
Today.

The influx of children are predominantly from Central America,
from such countries as Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The
matter has become serious enough that on Thursday, President
Obama met with his Mexican counterpart to discuss how the two
countries can collaborate to stem the influx of minors into the
US. Vice President Joe Biden is also scheduled to meet with
Guatemalan President Otto Perez and other Central American
officials to discuss the topic.

Unlike the traditional influx of undocumented immigrants into the
US through the Mexico border, however, the more recent arrivals
often wait to be apprehended by Border Patrol.

“We're seeing record numbers of children coming across,"
said Chris Cabrera, vice president of the local
chapter of the National Border Patrol Council.

"We're dealing with so many of them turning themselves in
that it makes it hard for our agents to focus on anything
else."

While the federal government attempts to tackle the issue, the
state of Texas has decided to take its own steps in dealing with
the influx. State leaders have now authorized an additional $1.3
million per week towards the Department of Public Safety, with
periodic reports on the impact of the additional surge in funding
to the state legislature.

“Texas can't afford to wait for Washington to act on this
crisis, and we will not sit idly by while the safety and security
of our citizens are threatened,” Gov. Rick Perry said on
Thursday.

“Until the federal government recognizes the danger it’s
putting our citizens in by its inaction to secure the border,
Texas law enforcement must do everything they can to keep our
citizens and communities safe.”

The surge in undocumented border crossings has quickly become a
hot political issue in Texas, with lawmakers jockeying to broach
the topic, and often for increased funding from the federal
government. Last week, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a
Republican currently campaigning for governor, requested an
additional $30 million in federal funding from Homeland Security
to deal with the issue. Abbott immediately released a statement
on Thursday praising the Texas legislature’s surge authorization.

In May, after detention facilities in Texas surpassed capacity,
federal authorities flew 400 suspected undocumented immigrants to
Arizona and released them at bus stops.

“We have enough manpower. It’s due to detention space,”
said Andy Adame, a US Border Patrol spokesman in Tucson, Arizona.

As agencies struggle to deal with a swelling number of
undocumented immigrants, conditions at crowded housing facilities
have deteriorated.

Administration officials cited by Reuters recently announced that
a third facility would be located at an Army
base in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to initially house 600 children
before increasing capacity to 1,200. Over the last few weeks,
similar housing facilities have been created in California and
Texas.